Teachers, board clash on contracts
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By Cristina Kumka Staff Writer - Published: November 17, 2009
Teachers from Clarendon, Shrewsbury and Wallingford are at odds with town school board members over their inaugural merged teaching contract, two years in the making.
Teachers from the three elementary schools want to get back to the negotiation table following a neutral fact finder's report that recommended certain salary figures and conditions, but board members want to open their concerns to the public. As of Monday, officials had yet to schedule another meeting with teachers to inch toward a settlement.
A public hearing on the joint master agreement is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 23 at the regular meeting of the Shrewsbury Town School Board.
"We want to have a better handle on what our communities have to say," said Adrienne Raymond, Shrewsbury Town School Board chairwoman.
"I don't know about you but I don't want to get creamed at budget time," she said. "We're trying to keep this as non-confrontational as possible."
Board members and teachers came to terms on most of the contract in January 2008, according to the Sept. 29 fact finder's report, but are now stuck on 15 issues — the most critical and debatable being salary.
The prekindergarten through sixth-grade teachers have been without a new ratified contract since the 2007-2008 school year and have not received pay increases since then, said Kevin Stanley, chief negotiator for the teachers and a member of the Rutland South Supervisory Union Elementary Association team.
"It is not, in our opinion, healthy for a school community to have invested nearly three years to consolidate the three elementary school master agreements only to have the process stall before it is completed," Stanley wrote in an e-mail Monday.
At the start of negotiations, there were more than 30 issues the boards and teachers were faced with coming to a compromise on, Stanley said.
Now, after more than a dozen meetings, the sides are down to the last 15, according to a background of the bargaining process contained in the report.
"It's quite an accomplishment," Stanley said.
The fact finder's report, completed by Bonnie McSpiritt, considered proposals from both parties on each of the 15 issues — from severance pay to duty-free lunch and contract length.
Attorney John Zawistoski of the Rutland law firm Ryan Smith & Carbine argued on behalf of the school boards and Sean Leach of the Vermont-NEA presented the argument of the three teachers' associations.
The boards asked for salary increases for all teachers to be set at 2.5 percent, 2.75 percent and 2.75 percent over a three-year contract, citing a down economy and loss of jobs in the area that have strapped local taxpayers.
The associations asked for a 5 percent across-the-board increase in the first year, 5.25 percent the second year and 5.48 percent in the third year, with varying percentages in each school, citing a desire to bring their wages up to par with Mill River Union High School teachers by the third year of the contract, and an economy that's improving.
Leach, on behalf of the associations, also argued that the wages of residents in the three towns are higher than the state average and the schools have padded their budgets somewhat with federal stimulus money.
McSpiritt recommended a 4.25 percent salary increase for Shrewsbury, a 4 percent for Clarendon and Wallingford in the first year and a 4 percent increase for all teachers for both of the following years.
McSpiritt, in her report, wrote that the boards didn't submit evidence that suggested taxpayers in the three towns couldn't pay higher teacher wages — the boards already approved a three-year contract for administrators, custodians and support staff at Mill River that included raises as low as 3 percent to as high as 6 percent for administrators.
The report also recommended the agreement read that "every effort" should be made to allow teachers in Shrewsbury to have a lunch duty-free break period. It also recommended that nothing restrict teachers from doing volunteer activities with students beyond their required 7.5 hours and a special incentive or merit pay proposal by the boards should not be included in the wording.
McSpiritt also recommended health insurance co-payments remain the same as in the prior contracts — teachers pay 10 percent of the premium cost for their plans while the school district pays 90 percent for all three years.
Last week, members of the Shrewsbury Teachers' Association asked the Shrewsbury Town School Board to come back to the negotiation table, using the fact finder's report as a framework, according to Susie Maxima, a teacher at Shrewsbury Mountain School and union member.
The board members have yet to oblige, Maxima and Stanley said.
"Both sides want to bring this to a close, it's just a matter of doing it," Stanley said in a phone interview Monday.
Stanley, when asked why he thought the board wanted the matter open to the public, said both parties had public groups that support their positions.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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